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On Tuesday I published a blog about the feelings I continue to have because of Trump’s election (If you haven’t read it, you might want to do so to understand the larger context for this one).

But I don’t want to be stuck in those feelings. I want and need to move past them. I suspect you know what I’m talking about, but the obvious question is, how do we do that?

I don’t have any wisdom to offer in answering the question, only a few thoughts I can share with you for what they’re worth.

Bear in mind as I do that everything I say arises from the fact that being Christian shapes how I see what happened in the election. That has both negative and positive sides to it.

The negative side is that I am part of a religious tradition that has been the cause of pain and suffering, conflict and even war throughout history, and it is still going on today right here in America, what with evangelical Christianity being the primary cause of the culture wars that are dividing our country and causing individual pain and suffering.

At the same time, being Christian is a positive because the life and teachings of Jesus are the primary source for the universal values that have proven to create a civil society and by which I try to live my life.  

I’m talking about values such as personal integrity, telling the truth, racial and social justice, equal rights for all including GLBTQ Americans, caring for others in need, taking action to reverse environmental catastrophe, the necessity of education, the welcoming of strangers to our shores, the rule of law that holds everyone accountable, freedom with responsibility, the right to vote, women being treated as equals to men in every respect with the sole responsibility for their healthcare decisions, including the choice to have an abortion.

You don’t have to be Christian to hold these values, but being Christian is why I do. What is more, I want to suggest that it will help you cope with what has happened if you also know what shapes and influences how you see the world. Given the dominant influence of Christianity in America since the nation’s founding, it may be that Christianity is the source of your value system even if you don’t think of yourself as Christian.

Doesn’t matter. What does is making sure your values are telling you the ultimate source of them is a positive influence. You need that if you want to feel like you’re standing on solid ground as you confront the conflicts and divisions that cannot be avoided if you want to stay engaged.

Make no mistake. We are a divided people. Kamala Harris (and Joe Biden) both said during the campaign that they believed we have more in common as Americans than what divides us, but the election proved that is not the case.

We are divided because Donald Trump and the MAGA movement do not share the values that have been core to who we have been becoming as a nation over the last 75 years, values based on the ideals upon which our nation was founded, and that is why we oppose them.

The divide is not about politics. It’s about values. They insist they are the real Americans, but in fact what they believe and believe in contradicts the America we are in the process of becoming.

They call our values, the ones I listed above, “woke,” implying that awakening to the need for our country to be diverse and fully inclusive while challenging white privilege and all forms of discrimination is a bad thing.

They think that way because they fear a broad equality in our nation elevates minorities while devaluing white people.

Trump knows they live in fear so he scapegoats the GLBTQ community and immigrants and “woke” Americans who stand with them so the people who live in fear will believe the lie that he is their spokesman.

Yes, we are a divided country because of a dramatic difference in values. On top of that, there is no room for compromise in this conflict.

When Kamala coined the phrase during the campaign, “We’re not going back,” she was talking about that fact, that there is no compromise on values that represent the best of America with people who want to go back to the days of racial, social, and economic inequality.

She lost the presidency, but we cannot lose ground on our values. We don’t have to be self-righteous about it. We don’t need to call the other side names. We don’t have to hate or despise them. We only need to be clear that we will not go back to a time when American society was exclusively white, practiced an informal class system, and pretended like we didn’t have the racial and social problems we did and still do.

Confidence in the power of our values is an important element in holding them. The truth is, we are on the winning side of history because love does actually win, good does triumph over evil, right is more sustainable than wrong. We must not forget that.

Part of being able to do that is knowing that the opposition we are facing is not as large as Trump and the news media want us to believe, something I have tried to point out in my last few blogs. Trump got less than 50% of the people who voted, even fewer of all registered voters, and little more than a third of all eligible voters.

In other words, he won, but barely, and didn’t even get the number of votes Joe Biden got in 2020. He has no mandate, and we need to remember that in order not to fall for the exaggerations he is making about what the election results mean.

Exaggerations of any kind at a time like this get in the way of dealing with the problems we face. We need to be on guard against exaggerated discouragement and exaggerated exuberance. Neither is grounded in reality, but each represents a problematic distraction.

Because the real issue we are facing is a conflict in fundamental values, it becomes increasingly important for us to nurture ourselves spiritually.

This is not about going to church or even being Christian. It is certainly not about evangelical religiosity. It is about recognizing that universal values are fruits of the spiritual life that cannot grow and mature without nurture.

The life of the spirit is all about values expressed in acts of kindness and compassion and working to strengthen the common good. To attend to our spiritual life means we spend time deepening our commitment to love rather than hate, unity rather than division, selflessness rather than selfishness.

This is not intended to be a sermonette. It is simply a statement of truth I believe arises from that transcendent dimension to life that puts us in touch with our truest and deepest selves. That helps us stay true to ourselves and to tell ourselves the truth about our selves.

Any of us is subject to the logical fallacies Steven Novella says are part of how our brains work (The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe I discussed several months ago), most especially “motivated reasoning” which is “confirmation bias” on steroids wherein we consciously look for evidence to support what we already believe and consciously ignore everything that contradicts it.

Being honest with ourselves allows us to see when we fall into this fallacy to feel like we are right even when we’re not, and it also helps us spot it at work in others, including Trumpers.

That kind of self-honesty is born of spiritual maturity. To have it we have to nurture it, and the times in which we are living make it imperative that we do.

One final suggestion about moving beyond grief is to remember that none of us is working alone in our resistance to Trump and MAGA Republicanism.

There are others who are just like us. It is important not to forget that. There is a marvelous passage from the wisdom of Ecclesiastes that says, “Two are better than one…if either of them falls down, one can help the other up” (4:9-10).

Two are always better than one in a struggle like this. When one of us gets discouraged, someone will be there to help us up. That is critical to avoid being overwhelmed by the news we will be hearing about what Trump is doing.

Much more will need to be said as we get further and further from the election and then have to face Inauguration day. Keeping ourselves grounded in the values that give life meaning and purpose is the first order of business that will position us to move forward in confidence that whatever Trump says and does in the coming months, he will NOT have the last word.